


Sonoran

by allthebros



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Arizona - Freeform, Desert, Future Fic, M/M, post-retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 15:07:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11038686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebros/pseuds/allthebros
Summary: Somewhat newly retired, Patrick makes his way to Arizona where Jonny's ostensibly getting his own shit together. It's summer in the desert, and it's been too long since they've seen each other.





	Sonoran

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [Blackhawks Summer Fic Fest 2017](http://coffeekristin.tumblr.com/post/161101119308/blackhawks-summer-fic-fest-2017). Inspired by the prompts 'vacation' and 'hiking' even though no hiking takes place in the fic. 
> 
> Thanks to sorrylatenew for the support and letting me bounce ideas off her, to kaneoodle for the support as well as the quick (and last minute) beta, and to coffeekristin for coming up with the fest idea and therefore kicking me out of a huge writing block.

 

 

 

 

Jonny’s cottage is both closer and further from the city than Patrick thought. 

It hasn’t been that long since he left Tucson behind, but he’s been driving more or less east down a dirt road and into the desert ever since, glad as fuck he remembered Jonny’s email from last year and rented a truck. 

The light is harsh with the sun at high noon, the sky a sharp pale blue that looks fake, like paint, and Patrick finds himself squinting at times, even behind his sunglasses. 

The desert’s been a mix of green and deep sandy browns all around when he takes the last bend in the dirt road and the cottage comes into view. He’s got the AC blasting in the truck, but he knows he’ll be hit with a wave of heat as soon as he gets out—can see it shimmering over the sandy-red dirt, glinting off the cottage’s beams.

It looks different than he expected. Even though he’s seen a few pictures of it—Jonny sending group emails and texts with snapshots of his life here once in awhile—he’d somehow always remembered it as more rustic and bare than it is. 

Patrick steers the truck beside Jonny’s car and turns off the engine. For a quick moment, looking out at the house, he thinks maybe he should have called, feeling like he’s somehow invaded Jonny’s privacy. How can he not when he can see the entirety of the floorplan all the way inside the house from where he’s sitting. 

He’d somehow forgotten about the windows. 

The whole place is modern lines, made almost exclusively of floor-to-ceiling glass. He watches Jonny come out from the room at the back, probably alerted by the sound of Pat’s truck, and waits for him to get to the front door before opening his own and jumping out.

The heat is less a wave when it hits him, and more a solid brick wall. If the bricks were baked and searing. He can practically feel his skin start burning already.

Jonny stands on the little deck in only a pair of shorts, arms crossed, and Patrick can’t believe how good it feels to see him, heart kicking in his chest—tugging at him like if it could get out and drag Patrick across the driveway and up those three stairs and into Jonny’s arms, it would.

“Well look who finally showed up,” Jonny says, hand going up to his forehead to shield his eyes. “If it isn’t Patrick fucking Kane.”

It’s his stupid, drawling Canadian voice that does it, sends Patrick’s feet moving.

He draws Jonny in before he’s completely off the last step, arms going around him, hands flat on his bare back, and Jonny’s skin is AC-cool even though Patrick’s never seen him so tanned. He’s dirt brown compared to Patrick, even though Patrick’s never been more tanned than now either, having spent the major part of his winter in Hawaii, California, and Florida.

Jonny’d look fake and leathery like this if they were back in Chicago, but here, with the desert around him, right up to his doorstep, visible even behind through the glass walls of his house, he looks like he belongs. Same color as the land, and just as solid to the touch. 

“Fucking invite you to come for months,” Jonny says once they pull apart, smile splitting his face. “And you decide to come here during summer?”

“Was busy,” Patrick says.

“Busy golfing, yeah.”

“Sorry I didn’t call.”

Jonny shakes his head. He hasn’t stopped smiling and Patrick knows he looks just the same.

It’s been too long. Too fucking long since they’ve seen each other.

“I told you to come whenever, man. It’s so good to see you.”

Patrick’s been counting in his head ever since he turned onto that dirt road leading him here. Two years since Jonny retired and then spent part of that season being treated at the Carrick Institute, before announcing that he was taking time off in Arizona to get his shit together. That wasn’t how he’d described it, but Patrick can read between Jonny’s lines pretty well. After that, they’d only seen each other on a few occasions until it was Patrick’s turn to hang up his skates. Almost a full year since they saw each other. 

“What finally brought you here?”

Patrick shrugs, pushes his hands in the pockets of his shorts. “I thought I’d come and make a case for Chicago. Bring you back with me.”

It was more honest than he’d wanted it to be (and yet still not the full truth of it) and from the way Jonny blinks at him, he’s as surprised by Patrick’s words as Patrick is that he voiced them. Thing is, he doesn’t get what Jonny’s doing here, has been doing here for over a year. It can’t be that his head isn’t okay—he wouldn’t be living in a glass house in the desert with that kind of bright light if that was the case—but Patrick can’t shake the feeling that something’s off with him. He got sick of wondering.

“I just don’t get it, I guess,” he says when Jonny just looks at him. He doesn’t have his sunglasses, has to squint a little to do so, and Patrick stares at the lines at the corners of his eyes. Jonny’s been sporting those for over a decade, but now they’re deep and brown and he feels their age reflected in his own body.

“You’re worried,” Jonny says almost with relief, and Patrick has no idea what he was thinking to make him sound like that, but he can’t deny it. 

“It just—You’ve been here a while and it doesn’t—feel. Like you. I guess.” He bites his lip. “Well, it does. But. Also not. Not alone like this. Maybe a commune or something,” he adds with a small smile that grows when Jonny rolls his eyes.

“I’m not alone, asshole. I’ve had guests pretty much all the time. My family’s been here. I go into the city several times a week for classes and drinks and golf or whatever. This is a rental. It’s not like I’m gonna spend the rest of my life here, I just needed a break.”

And Patrick knew all that. He knew. But there’s a vice inside him that unclenches to hear it out of Jonny’s mouth. Jonny’s always been more self-aware and self-analyzing than Patrick probably gives him credit for. But in his defence he’s known Jonny when he’s been pretty fucking stupid, so.

“It’s just been a bit of a hard time,” Jonny says, and Patrick nods. He gets that, he’s been trying to keep busy ever since the season started and he wasn’t there lacing his skates for it. It’s been an ache inside that he can never shake off. He’s been told it’ll get better with time, but he’s not sure he believes it.

“I know. For me too.”

When he first saw the cottage he had a thought of how exposed it would feel to live in this place—glass and steel and dirt and sky. And it does feel open, it does, but the more he stands here with Jonny, the more he realizes how private it is at the same time. The cottage is surrounded by mesquite and rocks and saguaros, and a tall cottonwood tree at the back. Not another house in sight, the Catalinas in the distance, and only the sound of the wildlife, the cicadas cries cutting the air like a knife. 

Jonny takes a step towards him, reaches out to take Patrick’s fingers in his. His skin has warmed up now, hot to the touch like anything would be under that sun.

“You got a girl?” he asks, low and close enough Patrick has to tip his head backwards a little to look into his dark, brown eyes. This is the truth of why he’s come that he couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ voice.

“No.”

Jonny hums deep in his chest, gets closer still, and bends down to gently, slowly brush their mouths together. A soft pass with barely any pressure to it, but Patrick feels the shiver of it like a sudden clench deep in his belly.

“Come inside,” Jonny whispers, kisses the corner of Patrick’s mouth, and Patrick does the same, turns his head, slides his nose over the arch of Jonny’s cheek. “There’s A/C.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

They sit side by side on the veranda at the back of the house and Patrick watches the Catalinas turn deep violet in the setting light of the sun. Jonny tells him it gets marginally cooler at night, but frankly, he can’t fucking feel it. At least it doesn’t feel like he’s five seconds away from a terrible sunburn.

In the low light, Jonny’s skin is even darker.

“Did you know,” Patrick says, “that there are more cases of skin cancer in this part of Arizona than up north? Like, three times higher or something.”

“No shit,” Jonny says, raising his camera to his eyes and taking a picture of the last light streaking over the mountains, the valley and rocks below. “It’s almost like there’s more sun.”

Patrick sighs and slips forward into his chair until his nape rests on top of the back. Even with the lights on inside the cottage he can already tell how bright the stars are going to be.

He hears the clink of Jonny’s camera as he puts it down on the small glass top table. Jonny’s picked up photography in the last year or so, sending random pictures of the desert, the flowers, even some wildlife—a coyote once, a javelina too. Patrick hadn’t even known what a javelina was. It’s pretty ugly.

“You’ve been reading,” Jonny says, quietly, and Patrick doesn’t have to turn his head to know Jonny’s looking at him. He can feel his eyes on him almost as well as he felt his hands over his skin a few hours ago, a warm, steady press Patrick can’t ever ignore.

“I was just trying to understand.”

The scrape of Jonny’s chair over the wood is loud and then he’s there, pushing Patrick’s legs apart with his feet until Patrick sits up straighter and lets him climb into his lap, smooth and easy like he isn’t pushing 40.

“Forty isn’t really old at all,” Jonny says when Patrick comments on it.

“It is for hockey players.”

Jonny shakes his head, eyes going sad. “We’re not hockey players anymore.”

The permanent ache inside Patrick twists sharply and he takes a deep breath, and swallows. Jonny’s had one more year than him to get to a point where he could even voice something like this, but it still feels like Patrick won’t ever be able to truly believe it.

“Sorry,” Jonny whispers, shifting his weight so he’s sitting more heavily on Patrick’s thighs. Patrick takes it easily, loves having him like this, the fading light softening him.

Slowly, he runs his hands from the wide spread of Jonny’s thighs, up his bare arms and shoulders to hold his head. He knows Jonny’s not fragile. Knows he’s not broken, even though there were a few terrible weeks where he thought he might be. He’s just so glad Jonny wasn’t an idiot about it, that he’s fine. And if it takes him living in the desert for a while for him to find his feet then so be it. It’s not like Patrick hasn’t felt like he’s been going through his days with a missing blade on one foot ever since he stopped playing either.

“We’ll go out tomorrow,” Jonny says. “Do something.”

Patrick swipes his thumb over Jonny’s cheekbone then drops his hands to his waist. “Not one of your spiritual walks or anything, right?”

Jonny snorts. “No. Though I’d really love to show you some places. It’s gorgeous out here, Pat. But it’s also too hot for hiking right now.”

“Thank fuck.”

“Shut up.” Jonny presses his fist into the middle of Patrick’s chest. “I was thinking golf.”

“Now you’re speaking my language.”

Jonny rolls his eyes, but the smile tugging at his lips as he slips off Patrick’s lap totally means he’s charmed. He can’t lie. 

“Let’s go in,” he says, stretching with his arms over his head and taking a step out of the shadow and into the yellow light spilling from the windows. Patrick watches the muscles in his arms and torso move. “I’ll make us some food.”

“Sounds great.”

In the distance, coyotes howl, and something in the mesquite nearby moves, a scared, rustling noise. Things are alive out there. Alive and different and he wants to ask Jonny about them.

“You got anywhere to be?” Jonny asks, eyes on the desert. He turns to smile at Patrick, a soft, hopeful thing that tugs loose a knot in that tangled mess inside him. 

“No.”

“Stay for a while?”

It’s summer in the desert and the monsoon and humidity will start soon and Patrick just thinks—says, “yes.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Jonny's desert cottage was inspired by [this one](https://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p3591063)


End file.
